ane was almost afraid to glance around her. This morning, looking at some of the Chinooks was kind of like looking at a train wreck. Horrifying, but she was unable to turn away. She sat near the front of the plane across the aisle from Assistant General Manager Darby Hogue, a copy of the Dallas Morning News opened to the sports page in her lap. She’d sent off her report of the previous night’s bloodletting, but she was interested in what the Dallas reporters had to say about it.

Last night, she and the area sports reporters had gathered in the media room to wait for their chance to enter the Chinooks’ locker room. They’d drunk coffee and cola and eaten some sort of enchilada concoction, but when Coach Nystrom had eventually come out, he’d informed them all there were to be no postgame interviews.

During the wait, the Dallas journalists had joked with her and shared war stories. They’d even told her which athletes gave them a break and always answered their questions. They also told her which players never answered questions. Luc Martineau topped the arrogant-pain-in-the-ass list.

Jane folded the paper and stuck it in her briefcase. Perhaps the Dallas reporters had been nice because they hadn’t seen her as a threat and weren’t intimidated by a woman. Maybe they would have treated her differently if they’d been in the locker room competing for an interview. She didn’t know and really didn’t care. It was just nice to discover that not all male reporters resented her. She was relieved to know that when she wrote one last column about her experiences, she could report that some men had evolved and not everyone viewed her as an assault to their egos.

She’d sent off two columns to the Seattle Times now. And she hadn’t heard a word from her editor. Not a word of praise or criticism, which she was trying to take as a good sign. She’d seen her first article passed around among the players, but none of them had commented either.

“I read your first column,” Darby Hogue said from across the aisle. In his bare feet, Jane estimated Darby Hogue to be five-foot-six. Five-nine in his cowboy boots. By the cut of his navy blue suit, she’d guess it was custom-made and would probably cost most people a month’s salary. His spiky gelled hair was the color of carrots and his complexion was even whiter than hers. Although she knew he was twenty-eight, he looked about seventeen. His brown eyes were intelligent and shrewd, and he had long sweeping red lashes. “You did a good job,” he added.

Finally, someone commented on her article. “Thank you.”

He leaned across the aisle to give her some pointers. “Next time you might want to mention our goal attempts.” Darby was the youngest assistant GM in the NHL, and Jane had read in his bio that he was a member of Mensa. She didn’t doubt it. Although he appeared to have taken great pains to shake his nerddom, he hadn’t quite been able to give up the pocket protector stuck in his white linen shirt.

“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Hogue,” she said through what she hoped was a charming smile, “I won’t tell you how to do your job, if you don’t tell me how to do mine.”

He blinked. “That’s fair.”

“Yes, I think so.”

He straightened and placed a leather briefcase on his lap. “You usually sit in the back with the players.”

She’d always sat in back because by the time she’d boarded, the seats up front had been taken by coaches and management. “Well, I’m beginning to feel persona non grata back there,” she confessed. The incident of the previous night had made their feelings for her perfectly clear.

He returned his gaze to hers. “Has something happened that I should know about?”

Beyond the nuisance calls, she’d found a dead mouse outside her door last night. It had been very dehydrated as if it had been dead awhile. Obviously someone had found it somewhere and left it for her. Not exactly a horse’s head in her bed, but she didn’t think it was a coincidence either. But the last thing she needed was for the players to think she was running to management telling tales. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Have dinner with me tonight and we can talk about it.”

She stared across the aisle at him. For a second she wondered if he was one of those short guys who just naturally assumed she’d go out with him because she was short too. Her last boyfriend had been five-seven and had had the mother of all Napoleon complexes, which had butted heads with her own Napoleon complex. The very last thing she needed was a short guy asking her out. Especially a short guy who was also Chinooks management. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want the players to think you and I are involved.”

“I have dinner with male sports reporters all the time. Chris Evans, in fact.”

It wasn’t the same. She had to be completely beyond gossip. More professional than men. Even though women had been allowed in the locker room for almost three decades now, speculation over women sleeping with their sources was still an issue. She didn’t think her credibility or acceptance with the players could sink lower, but she really didn’t want to find out.

“I just thought you might be tired of eating alone,” Darby added.

She was tired of eating alone. She was tired of staring at the walls of a hotel room or the inside of the team’s jet. Maybe someplace very public would be okay. “Just business?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why don’t we meet in the hotel restaurant?” she proposed.

“Seven sound okay?”

“Seven is perfect.” She dug around in the front pocket of her briefcase and pulled out the itinerary. “Where are we staying tonight?”

“LAX Doubletree,” Darby answered. “The hotel shakes every time one of those airbuses takes off.”

“Marvelous.”

“Welcome to the glamorous life of an athlete,” he said and leaned his head back.

Jane had pretty much already figured out that a four-game grind was just that: a grind. Although she’d already studied it dozens of times, her gaze scanned the itinerary. LA, then San Jose. Just a little over halfway into the road trip and she was looking forward to going home. She wanted to sleep in her own bed, drive her own car instead of ride a bus, and even open her own refrigerator instead of a hotel minibar. The Chinooks had four more days on the road before they returned to Seattle for a four-game, eight-day stretch. Then it was off again for Denver and Minnesota. More hotels and meals by herself.

Maybe having dinner with Darby Hogue was not such a bad idea. It could be enlightening and break the monotony.

At seven o’clock, Jane stepped off the elevators and made her way to the Seasons Restaurant. She’d left her hair down and it fell in soft curls to her shoulders. She wore her black wool pants and gray sweater. The sweater opened on the side of her neck and had flared sleeves, and until Luc had made that comment about her looking like the archangel of doom, she’d really liked it.

Now she wondered if there was some hidden reason beyond her fear of clashing colors that made her gravitate to dark colors. Was she depressed and didn’t know it, as Caroline had suggested? Have some undiagnosed mental disorder? Was she really an archangel of doom, or was Caroline delusional and Luc an arrogant A-hole? She liked to think the latter.

Darby waited for her at the entrance of the restaurant, looking very young in a pair of khakis, red and orange Hawaiian print shirt, and a new dose of gel in his hair. They were shown to a table near the windows and Jane ordered a lemon-drop martini to chase away her fatigue, if only for a few hours. Darby ordered a Beck’s and was asked for his ID.

“What? I’m twenty-eight,” he complained.

Jane laughed and opened the dinner menu. “People are going to mistake you for my son,” she kidded him.

The corners of his mouth turned downward and he pulled out his wallet. “You look younger than I do,” he grumbled as he showed the waiter his identification.

When their drinks arrived, Jane ordered salmon and wild rice while Darby chose beef and a baked potato.

“How’s your room?” he asked.

It was like every other room. “It’s fine.”

“Good.” He took a drink of his beer. “Any problems with the players?”

“No, they all pretty much avoid me.”

“They don’t want you here.”

“Yes, I know.” She took a sip of her martini. The sugar around the top of the glass, the floating lemon slice, and the perfect mix of Absolut Citron vodka and Triple Sec almost had her sighing like a seasoned alcoholic. But becoming an alcoholic was one thing that Jane didn’t have to worry about, for two reasons. Her hangovers were too painful to ever allow her to turn pro, and when she got tanked her judgment went out the window, sometimes along with her panties.

Jane and Darby’s conversation turned from hockey to other interests. She learned that he had graduated summa cum laude with an MBA from Harvard at the age of twenty-three. He mentioned his membership in Mensa three times, and that he owned a five-thousand-square-foot home on Mercer Island, a thirty-foot sailboat, and drove a cherry-red Porsche.

No doubt about it, Darby was a geek. Not that that was necessarily bad; besides being a fraud, she sometimes felt like a geek herself. To keep up her end of the conversation, she mentioned her undergraduate degrees in journalism and English. Darby didn’t seem all that impressed.

Their food arrived and he looked up from putting butter on his baked potato. “Am I going to end up in your Single Girl column?”

Jane paused in the act of placing her napkin on her lap. Most men feared showing up in the column. “Would you mind?”

His eyes lit up. “Hell, no.” He thought a moment. “But it has to be good. I mean, I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was a bad date.”

“I don’t think I can lie,” she lied. Half the stuff in her column was made up.

“I’d make it worth your while.”

If he wanted to wheel and deal, the least she could do was listen. “How?”

“I could tell the guys on the team that I don’t think you’re here to report on the size of their Johnsons or strange sexual habits,” he said, which immediately made her wonder exactly who had strange sexual habits. Maybe Vlad the Impaler. “And I could assure them you haven’t slept with Mr. Duffy to get this job.”

Complete horror dropped her jaw, and she raised a hand to her mouth. She’d figured that there might be some small minds in the newsroom who’d assumed she’d exchanged sexual favors with Leonard Callaway, because, after all, he was the managing editor and she was just that woman who wrote that silly column about being single in the city. She wasn’t a real journalist.

But it had never entered her head that anyone would think she’d slept with Virgil Duffy. Good God, the man was old enough to be her grandfather. Sure, he had a reputation for dogging younger women, and there had been a time in her life when her standards had hit a real low patch and she’d had sex with some men she’d rather forget about, but she’d never dated anyone forty years older than herself.

Darby laughed and dug into his beef. “I can see by the look on your face that the speculation isn’t true.”

“Of course not.” She reached for her martini and polished it off. The vodka and Triple Sec warmed a path to her stomach. “I’d never even met Mr. Duffy before that first day in the locker room.” The unfairness of it hit her and she signaled for another martini. Usually Jane hated to cry “no fair.” She believed that life wasn’t fair, and that crying about it only made things worse. She was a get-over-it-and-get-on-with-your-life type of girl, but in this case it really wasn’t fair because there was nothing she could do about it. If she made a fuss and denied it, she doubted anyone would believe her.

“If you write about me in your column, make me sound good, I’ll make things easier for you.”

She picked up her fork and took a bite of her wild rice. “What, are you having trouble finding a date?” She’d been joking, but by the brilliant blush to his cheek, she could tell she’d hit a nerve.

“When women first meet me, they think I’m a dork.”

“Hmm, I didn’t think so,” she lied, risking the bad karma.

He smiled, and the risk was worth it. “They never give me a chance.”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t talk about Mensa and about your advanced degrees, you’d have better luck.”

“Think so?”

“Yep.” She was halfway through her salmon when her second drink arrived.

“Maybe you could give me some pointers.”

Right, like she was an expert. “Maybe.”

His shrewd gaze bored into her as he took a bite of potato. “I could make it worth your while,” he said again.

“I’m getting nuisance calls. Make them stop.”

He didn’t appear surprised. “I’ll see what I can do about that.”

“Good, because it’s harassment.”

“Look at it more as initiation.”

Uh-huh. “There was a dead mouse outside my door last night.”

He took a swig of his beer. “It could have crawled there by itself.”

Sure. “I want an interview with Luc Martineau.”

“You’re not the only one. Luc is a very private guy.”

“Ask him.”

“I’m not the best person to ask him. He doesn’t like me.”

She raised her lemon drop to her lips. Luc didn’t like her either. “Why?”

“He knows I advised against trading for him. I was fairly adamant about it.”

That was a surprise. “Why?”

“Well, it’s old news, but he was injured when he was with Detroit. I’m not convinced a player his age can come back from major ACT surgery on both knees. At one time Martineau was good, maybe one of the best, but eleven million a year is a lot to gamble on a thirty-two-year-old man with bad knees. We traded a first-round draft pick, a heavy-hitting defender, and a pair of bookend wings. That left us weak on the right side. I’m not sure Martineau was worth it.”

“He’s having a good season,” she pointed out.

“So far. What happens if he’s reinjured? You can’t build a team around one player.”

Jane didn’t know a lot about hockey, and she wondered if Darby was right. Had the team been built around their elite goalie? And did Luc, who appeared so cool and calm, feel the tremendous pressure of what was expected of him?

It took a frantic call from Mrs. Jackson for Luc to learn that Marie hadn’t been to school since Luc had left Seattle. Mrs. Jackson told him she’d dropped Marie off every morning, and Marie had walked into the building. What he also discovered was that she’d then gone straight out the back.

When he’d asked Marie where she’d been spending her time, she’d answered, “The mall.” When he’d asked her why, she’d said, “Everyone at that school hates me. I don’t have any friends. They’re all stupid.”

“Come on, now,” he’d said, “you’ll make friends and then everything will be okay.”

She’d started to cry, and like always, he felt bad and totally inadequate. “I miss my mom. I want to go home.”

After he’d hung up with Marie and Mrs. Jackson, he’d called his personal manager, Howie Stiller. When Luc returned home Tuesday night, several brochures from private schools would be waiting for him in a FedEx mailer.

Now the music from the piano drifted to where Luc sat in the corner of the lobby bar. He lifted a bottle of Molson’s to his mouth and took a long drink. For Marie, going home wasn’t an option. Her home was with him now, but she obviously didn’t like living with him.

He set the bottle on the table and relaxed in the wing chair. He had to talk to Marie about boarding school, and he hadn’t a clue how she’d respond. He wasn’t certain she’d like the idea or see the logic and benefit in it. He just hoped she didn’t gel hysterical.

The day of her mother’s funeral, she’d been beyond hysterical, and Luc hadn’t known what to do for her. He’d hugged her awkwardly and told her he’d always take care of her. And he would. He would see that she always had everything she needed, but he was a piss-poor substitute for her mother.

How had his life become so complicated? He rubbed his face with his hands, and when he lowered them, he saw Jane Alcott walking toward him. It was probably too much to hope that she’d walk on by.

“Waiting for a friend?” she asked as she came to stand beside the chair opposite him.

He had been, but he’d just called and canceled. After his conversation with Marie, he wasn’t in the mood for one-on-one time. He was thinking that he might catch up with some of his teammates at a sports bar downtown. He reached for the bottle and looked at her over the top as he took a swig. He watched her watching him, and he wondered if she was assuming—wrongly—that because he’d been addicted to pain medication he was just as naturally an alcoholic. In his case, one didn’t have anything to do with the other.

“Nope. Just sitting here alone,” he answered as he lowered the bottle. Something was different about her tonight. Despite the dark clothing, she looked softer, less uptight. Kind of cute. Her hair, usually held back in a controlled ponytail, fell in a tangle of unruly curls to her shoulder. Her green eyes were kind of dewy like wet leaves, and her bottom lip appeared fuller and the corners of her mouth were turned up.

“I just finished a dinner meeting with Darby Hogue,” she provided as if he’d asked.

“Where?” In his suite? That would explain the hair, the eyes, and the smile. Luc never would have guessed Darby even knew what to do with a woman, much less put that soft dewy look on her face. And he never would have thought Jane Alcott, the archangel of gloom and doom, could look so warm and sexy. Damn.

“In the hotel restaurant, of course.” Her smile fell. “Where did you think?”

“The hotel restaurant,” he lied.

She wasn’t buying it, and as he’d come to expect in the short time he’d known her, she wasn’t going to let it go either. “Don’t tell me you’re one of the guys who think I slept with Virgil Duffy to get this job.”

“No, not me,” he lied some more. They’d all wondered, but he didn’t know how many actually believed it.

“Great, and now I’m sleeping with Darby Hogue.”

He held up a hand. “None of my business.”

As the last strains of the piano died, Jane slid into the chair opposite him and blew out a breath. Damn, so much for a little peace.

“Why do women have to put up with this crap?” she said. “If I were a man, no would accuse me of exchanging sex for a promotion. If I were a man, no one would think I had to sleep with my sources just to get the story. They’d just slap me on the back and give me high fives and say...” She paused in her rant long enough to lower her voice and her brows at the same time. “ ‘Good piece of investigative journalism. You’re the man. You’re the stud.’” She ran her fingers though the sides of her hair and pushed it from her face. Her sleeves fell back and exposed the thin blue veins of her slim wrist, and the material of her sweater pulled across her small breasts. “No one accused you of sleeping with Vigil to get your job.”

He lifted his gaze to her face. “That’s because I’m the stud.” They all had their crosses to bear, and after the day he’d had, he didn’t have the energy to pretend sympathy and understanding. Luc Martineau didn’t have the time or energy or inclination to worry about a pain-in-the-ass reporter. He had his own damn problems, and one of them was her.

Jane looked over the table at Luc and crossed her arms over her chest. The light overhead picked out the blond in his short hair and settled on the broad shoulders of his blue chambray shirt. The color of his shirt brought out the blue of his eyes. After the two martinis she’d had during dinner, everything was surrounded by a nice cheery glow. Or at least it had been until Luc insinuated that she and Darby were sleeping together.

“If I had a penis,” she said, “no one would think I was having sex with Darby.”

“Don’t be too sure about that. We’re not altogether sure of the little weasel’s sexual orientation.” Luc reached for his beer and Jane’s lungs squeezed a little. He’d left the top two buttons of his shirt undone and the soft material fell away from his chest, exposing his clavicle and the top of his muscular shoulder and neck.

She could set Luc straight on that score, but she didn’t bother to inform him that Darby had wanted dating tips over dinner. “How’re your knees?” she asked as she rested her forearms on the table.

He raised the Molson’s to his mouth and said, “One hundred percent.”

“Completely pain-free?”

He lowered the bottle and sucked a drop of beer from his bottom lip. “What? You don’t know? I thought you made digging into my past your calling in life.”

His conceit was outrageous and a little too close to the truth. For some reason she could not even explain to herself, Luc intrigued her more than the other Chinooks. “Do you really think that I don’t have anything better to do than to spend my time thinking about you? Digging up a little of the goods on Luc Martineau?”

Fine lines appeared at the corners of his eyes and he laughed. “Sweetheart, there is nothing little about Luc’s goods.”

The Jane who wrote the Single Girl column would have a sophisticated comeback and dazzle him with her wit. Honey Pie would take him by his hand and lead him to a linen closet. She’d unbutton the rest of his shirt and place her mouth on his warm chest. Breathe heavily the scent of his skin and melt into his hot hard body. She would see for herself if he told the truth aboot those goods. But Jane was neither of those women. The real Jane was too inhibited and self-conscious, and she hated that a man who made her catch her breath was the same man who looked through her and found her so lacking.

“Jane?”

She blinked. “What?”

He reached across the table and the tips of his long fingers brushed hers. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” It was the slightest of touches, maybe not even quite a touch, but she felt the tingles from it travel through her palm and up her wrist. She stood so quickly the table rocked. “No. I’m going to my room.”

The combination of alcohol, Luc’s molten mojo, and the grind of the last five days sloshed about in her brain as she looked around for the bank of elevators. For a few seconds she was disoriented. Three different hotels in five days, and suddenly she couldn’t remember where the elevators were. She glanced toward the registration counter and spied them off to the right. Without a word, she walked from the lobby bar. This was not good, she told herself as she moved across the hotel lobby. He was so big and overtly male, he made her wrist tingle and her brain go numb. She stopped in front of the elevator doors, her cheeks hot. Why him? She didn’t like him. Yes, he intrigued her, but that wasn’t the same as liking him.

Luc reached around her from behind and pressed the elevator button. “Going up?” he asked next to her ear.

“Oh, yeah.” She wondered how long she would have stood there like a fool before she realized that she hadn’t pressed a button.

“Have you been drinking?”

“Why?”

“You smell like vodka.”

“I had a couple martinis with dinner.”

“Ah,” he said as the doors opened and they stepped into the empty elevator. “Which floor?”

“Three.” Jane looked down at the toes of her boots, then moved her gaze to his blue and gray running shoes. As the doors closed, he leaned against the back panel and crossed one foot over the other. The hem of his Levi’s brushed the white white laces. She lifted her gaze up his long legs and thighs, up the bulge of his fly and the buttons of his shirt to his face. Within the cramped confines of the elevator, his blue eyes stared back at her.

“I like your hair down.”

She pushed one side behind her ear. “I hate my hair. I can’t ever do anything with it and it’s always in my face.”

“It’s not bad.”

Not bad? As compliments went, it ranked right up there with, “Your butt’s not that big.” So why did a tingle in her wrist travel to her stomach? The doors opened, saving her a response. She stepped out first and he followed.

“Where’s your room?”

“Three-twenty-five. Where’s yours?”

“I’m on the fifth floor.”

She stopped. “You got off on the wrong floor.”

“No, I didn’t.” He took her elbow in his big hand and moved with her down the hall. Through the material of her sweater, she felt the warmth of his palm. “When you stood up in the lobby, you looked like you were about to fall over.”

“I haven’t had that much to drink.” She would have stopped again if he hadn’t kept moving her along the blue and yellow carpet. “Are you escorting me to my room?”

“Yep.”

She thought of the first morning when he’d carried her briefcase, then told her that he wasn’t trying to be nice. “Are you trying to be nice this time?”

“No, I’m meeting the guys in a few and I don’t want to have to wonder if you made it to your room without passing out on the way.”

“And that would ruin your fun?”

“No, but for a few seconds it might take my attention off Candy Peeks and her naughty cheerleader routine. Candy’s worked real hard on her pom-poms, and it would be a shame if I couldn’t give her my undivided attention.”

“A stripper?”

“They prefer to be called dancers.”

“Ahh.”

He squeezed her arm. “Are you going to print that in the paper?”

“No, I don’t care about your personal life.” She pulled her plastic room key from her pocket. Luc took it from her and opened the door before she could object.

“Good, because I’m yanking your chain. I’m really meeting the guys at a sports bar that’s not too far away.”

She looked up into the shadows of his face created by her darkened room. She didn’t know which story to believe. “Why the BS?”

“To see that little wrinkle between your brows.”

She shook her head as he handed her the key.

“See ya, Ace,” he said and turned away.

Jane watched the back of his head and his wide shoulders as he walked down the hall. “See ya tomorrow night, Martineau.”

He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “Are you planning on going into the locker room?”

“Of course. I’m a sports reporter and it’s part of my job. Just as if I were a man.”

“But you’re not a man.”

“I expect to be treated like a man.”

“Then take my advice and keep your gaze up,” he said as he turned once more and walked away. “That way you won’t blush and your jaw won’t hit the floor like a woman.”

The next night Jane sat in the press box and watched the Chinooks battle it out with the Los Angeles Kings. The Chinooks came out strong and put three goals on the board in the first two periods. It appeared Luc would have his sixth shutout of the season until a freak shot glanced off defenseman Jack Lynch’s glove and flipped behind Luc into the net. At the end of the third frame the score was three-one, and Jane breathed a sigh of relief. The Chinooks had won. She wasn’t a jinx.

At least not today. She would have a job when she woke in the morning.

She remembered in horrid Technicolor detail the first time she walked into the Chinooks’ locker room, and her stomach twisted into a big knot as she passed through the doorway. The other reporters were already there questioning the team’s captain, Mark Bressler, who stood in front of his stall taking questions.

“We played well in our own end,” he said as he pulled his jersey over his head. “We took advantage of power plays and put the puck in the net. The ice was soft out there tonight, but we didn’t let it affect our play. We came out knowing what we had to do and we did it.”

Keeping her gaze on his face, Jane felt around in her purse for her tape recorder. She brought the notes she’d been taking throughout the game up to eye level. “Your defense allowed thirty-two shots on goal,” she managed between the other questions. “Are the Chinooks looking to acquire a veteran defenseman before the March nineteenth trade deadline?” She thought the question was quite brilliant, if she did say so herself. Informed and knowledgeable.

Mark looked through the other reporters at her and said, “That’s a question only Coach Nystrom can answer.”

So much for her brilliance.

“You scored your three hundred and ninety-eighth career goal tonight. How does it feel?” she asked. The only reason she knew about the goal was because she’d heard the television reporters talking about it in the press box. She figured a bit of flattery would get a quote out of the captain.

“Good.”

So much for a quote.

She turned and headed down the row of towering men, moving toward Nick Grizzell, the forward who’d scored the first goal. Long Johns fell and jocks snapped as if on cue when she walked passed. She kept her eyes up and her gaze forward as she clicked on her tape recorder and let it record questions asked by other reporters. Her editor at the Times wouldn’t know that she hadn’t asked the questions. But she knew, and the players knew it too.

Grizzell had just returned the week before from the injured list and she asked him, “How does it feel to be back in the game and scoring the first goal?”

He looked across his shoulder at her and dropped his jockstrap. “Fine.”

Jane had had about enough of this crap. “Great,” she said. “I’ll quote you on that.”

She glanced at the stall several feet away and saw Luc Martineau laughing at her. There was no way she would walk over there and ask him what he was laughing about.

She just didn’t want to know.